Some people build community by showing up again and again.
For Holly McDorman, that has looked different in different seasons of life. Sometimes it has meant speaking up for people who need to feel safer and more supported. Sometimes it has meant helping create a space where families can find one another. Sometimes it has meant using her voice to lift up the people, places, and everyday moments that make Galesburg feel like home.
At the center of it all is a simple belief: communities are stronger when more people feel seen, included, and connected.
That belief has shaped much of Holly’s life in Galesburg. A lifelong area resident, Holly’s connection to this community runs deep. She grew up here, returned here, raised her family here, and has spent years paying attention to what helps people belong. Her advocacy is not abstract. It is rooted in the place she calls home.
When Support Becomes Advocacy
When Holly looked for support for her own family and found that there was not a local group available, she helped build one. “We didn’t have a group here, and so I founded the group here,” Holly said. Through her work with PFLAG, she became part of creating a space where LGBTQ+ people, parents, families, and allies could find information, encouragement, and community.
“We met once a month at the old library. We had events there. We had educational presentations there.”
What began with a personal need grew into something that could serve others, too. That is one of the clearest threads in Holly’s story: when she sees a gap, she looks for a way to help fill it.
Building the Galesburg We Want to See
Her advocacy has continued beyond one organization or one issue. Holly has become a familiar voice in Galesburg for inclusion, safety, and dignity. She has spoken up for people who are often left out of public conversations and has worked to help neighbors better understand one another.
Later, that same instinct led her to help create a more positive online space for Galesburg. As Holly explained, the community “needed something to bring them together.” The page grew from a desire to celebrate the everyday people who make Galesburg better: workers, neighbors, helpers, and familiar faces who may not receive awards or public recognition, but still shape the spirit of the community.
Through her online community-building and local advocacy, Holly tries to lift up the Galesburg many people want to believe in: a place where people are treated with care, where differences are met with compassion, and where belonging is more than just a word.
In many ways, Holly’s work is about building the Galesburg we want to see by choosing what to lift up: everyday kindness, community pride, and the people who help make this place feel like home.
A Library That Belongs to Everyone
The library has been part of that story, both for Holly’s family and for the wider community she cares about.
For her children, the Galesburg Public Library has become a familiar and trusted place. It is a place for programs, computers, books, activities, and summer visits. It is also a place where they can explore a little independence, get to know library staff, and feel comfortable being themselves.
“The library is a safe space,” Holly said. “It really, really is. It’s like our extended family.”
That kind of trust matters.
For parents, a library is more than a building with shelves. It is one of the few public places where children can grow into confidence at their own pace. They can ask questions. They can wander toward what interests them. They can be surrounded by adults who know how to welcome curiosity.
For Holly’s family, that trust has allowed her children to practice independence in a safe environment. “This is the place where we let go of the reins a little bit,” she said.
For Holly, who thinks often about what makes a place feel safe and accessible, that matters deeply.
The library has also played a role in Holly’s advocacy work. As a public gathering space, it has offered room for learning, conversation, and connection. It is a place where people from different backgrounds and life experiences can come through the same doors. Families, children, teens, older adults, people looking for resources, people seeking quiet, people hoping to connect, and people who may not have many other places to go all share the same civic space.
As Holly put it simply, “It’s a public library. It’s for everyone.”
That is part of what makes the library powerful: it does not belong to just one kind of person. It belongs to the community.
And for someone like Holly, whose work is rooted in helping people feel less alone, that kind of space is essential. The library reflects many of the same values that guide her advocacy: access, dignity, learning, and connection. It gives people a place to gather, a place to discover, and a place to be welcomed without needing to prove they belong.
Showing Up, Again and Again
Holly’s story reminds us that community does not build itself. It takes people willing to notice what is missing. It takes people willing to speak up. It takes people willing to create space for others. And it takes public places, like the library, where those connections can grow.
In Galesburg, Holly McDorman is one of the people helping imagine a more welcoming community and then doing the work to move us closer to it.
When she thinks about the kinds of projects that help move Galesburg forward, Holly sees the library as one of them. “The library brought a lot of people together,” she said.
She shows up for her family. She shows up for her neighbors. She shows up for people who need support, understanding, and a place to belong.
And in the story of Holly’s Galesburg, the library is one of the places where that hope becomes visible.
